Death and All His Friends
by Kellywa
Summary: A great room of granite dimly lit by glowing green crystal overhead extended before me. Behind me, further up on the dreary wall, was a sort of dome jutting outward; it put out light that mimicked the primordial ceiling, restless souls in purgatory...
1. Chapter 1

**Death and All His Friends**

**The Beginning**

"_The sacrifice of hiding in a lie_

_The sacrifice is never knowing why_…"

--Pushing Me Away by Linkin Park

Her lips were pale, gold-flecked brown eyes lifeless, body limp. Her simple white gown was draped across the manifestation of her soul, the dead body in front of me. It awaited judgment, and who better for the task than me? After all, that is the job description of the God of the Underworld, of the Dead. Though my thoughts resisted, I unwillingly brushed my forefinger over the ground beside her porcelain face and hair that shone red in the dim green glow from overhead. A gash opened in the floor beneath her where my fingertips had been, and she fell into the deepening gray abyss. Suddenly, the walls gave way to cracks that at first trickled, then openly flooded, crimson blood. I watched myself look back, a coy smile on my mouth. My arms spread, and I tilted forward, letting myself fall into hell after her.

"Hades!" Thanatos hissed, waking me from my nightmares. He had never been the pleasant type. There I was, back in my unyielding ebony throne. A great room of granite dimly lit by glowing green crystal overhead extended before me. Behind me, further up on the dreary wall, was a sort of dome jutting outward; it put out light that mimicked the primordial ceiling, restless souls in purgatory pressing their bony fingers and eyeless faces against the inside of it in attempts to break free. At the opposite end stood my old armor, black and fearsome, a perfect match to everything else in the Underworld.

"Get your hand off me," I hissed back. Thanatos lacked courtesy. I had seen him talking behind my back before, claiming he was Lord of the Dead. I don't know what "dead" he was referring to, but this was my domain. _Calm down_, I was tempted to tell him rather than limiting my response to what I had already said. _Don't get your crazy black robes in a knot_. Thanatos had always been that opposing force, that false friend. He and I looked enough like brothers (despite our lack of actual relation without tracing back to the Titans). We both impersonated death with unchanging appearances, dark hair that fell into our eyes, and chalk white skin. He was closer to demonic than anything, however. His eyes, a bloody red color, contrasted with mine that shone a sickly sweet green hue not too far from that which radiated from the dome and the crystals. Not only that; whenever he entered a room, a faint sulfur smell pierced the air and the light fell dimmer. He was a curse with deeply sunken cheeks and a corrupt sense of things.

"But, Hades," Thanatos continued, "Zeus replied. He sent the Messenger to tell you he'll turn his head for three days. You get her down here in three days, and she stays. You don't, she won't." A sickening grin was laced over his lips when he finished speaking.

I stood, unstable at first but quickly able to gain some balance, and strode past the gargantuan pillars with Thanatos at my heels. "I can do it in five minutes," I retorted as I approached the armor and took the door that flanked it to the right. It led us into a narrower hallway that gave way to a few tributary hallways and a dead end. We took the third hall on the left. "The problem is keeping her here. If you were _really_ the Lord of the Dead, you'd know that, _kid_." The sulfuric air became sharper for an instant. I almost laughed at this reaction.

The "her" we were discussing was none other than Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. I had first spotted her at a meeting at Mount Olympus. It was not a place I usually bothered to go to, mainly because of my siblings. My two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, never failed to annoy me. Poseidon was full of himself and showy, and Zeus was an aging pervert. Both of them found the fact that I lived alone (aside from the shades and dead souls) extremely funny, but I knew I needed no one. I was independent, strong, and the final justice. This view of myself lasted until I felt a shoulder bump into my arm. I had looked down, borderline bewildered, to see who had run into me.

"Sorry," she mumbled with downcast eyes, and then she scurried away before I could even think "no problem, and you should tell me your name while you're at it!"

I had followed her outside, just to see where she was going. Apparently, neither of us really cared for the squabble over a marriage taking place at the meeting. She had taken a moment to look around, perhaps suspecting that she was being watched. _Quite perceptive_, I had noted. Finally letting her guard down, she stood with a contented smile on her full lips and breathed in solemnly as if listening for something. Suddenly, she began to _dance_. Persephone had twirled and turned, slowly at first, then progressed to a rapid constant spinning motion. Her hair, copper where the remaining rays of sun caressed it, was a blur around her bright angel's face. Her white gown, pinned at the shoulders, revealed her capable arms and clung to her slim waist. I left promptly because I wanted no more of her.

Of course, fate had its fun. That night, I had dreamt of Persephone. In my dreams she was always cold and dead, much like a flower picked from the ground and left to die. It had occurred to me just a few weeks after I had seen her that this was what she would be if left on Earth. She was a goddess, so dying would never be an issue, but her soul's death could come quickly. With her mother and the countless Olympian suitors, hers was a lose-lose situation. She could be swept away from her mother and made a wife, as any other goddess, or she could be kept under her mother's watchful and overbearing eyes where she would be forced to act naïve for all of eternity. Neither could be best. At least, that is what I convinced myself. After careful planning, I had decided to ask my brother, Zeus, for her hand. If he needed a good excuse, I could always tell him that the Underworld needed a Queen to match the Upperworld. Surely this would sway him; he laughed in my face, but as Thanatos informed me, he approved.

Once I managed to free myself of Thanatos's company, I navigated through my labyrinth of a world to find my study. The study was a quiet room cramped with bookcases and scrolls and mindfully placed candlesticks that burned soft vermillion continuously. Persephone would like this room because of its warmth. I reached behind a scroll on the second shelf to my right, and my hand latched onto a smooth box. I pulled out the beautiful box, black and glassy in the candlelight, and I gingerly pulled off the lid. Inside was a single blossom, beautiful and pure white like light from Helios. I lifted it as tenderly as I could and wrapped it in my hands, concealing it beneath my palm. "Don't fail me now," I whispered hopefully. When I opened my hands, the fragile flower was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Falling**

"_Maybe tonight, we'll fly so far away_

_We'll be lost before the dawn_…"

--Before the Dawn by Evanescence

Everything was as it should be. I closed my eyes and took in the warmth of Helios, a contrast against the cool, sweet morning air; my feet carried me as I twirled effortlessly in the soft grass.

Everything was as it should be until I caught a glimpse of a beautiful blossom swaying it the light breeze. It was a tender flower that shone pure white, and its light even seemed to echo off of the green below it. It was breathtaking. Normally, I stuck to a strict code of ethics regarding flowers; the rules were simple. No picking the flowers, no stepping on the flowers, no referring to them as "weeds." But I was a goddess; I could surely make an exception just this once. Perhaps my mother would know of a way to keep it alive. I bent over and let my hand fall to it, plucking it from the ground. This was the first turn of gears.

The clouds darkened into blistering black masses bubbling to intimidating heights, and the sky grew deep vermillion beneath them. The grass was suddenly ash on dead earth that my feet sank into as if it were a marsh. My breathing quickened, limbs tensed; I took a glance down at the flower, still as radiant as it had been moments before. My eyes rigidly went back up to find the sky dripping into the earth and the earth bleeding into the sky, crimson and orange flooding the deadened grey horizon. Suddenly, the ground split under my feet. An unidentifiable noise filled the air and choked away my screaming; I stretched my arms up desperately to the disappearing world. The flower, lost from my grasp, became smaller and smaller. My vision went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**Purgatory**

"_Wouldn't it be grand to take a pistol by the hand,_

_And wouldn't it be great if we were dead?_

_And in my honest observation_

_During this operation_

_Found a complication in your heart, so long_

'_Cause now you've got_

_Maybe just two weeks to live_

_Is that the most that you can give?_"

--Dead by My Chemical Romance

_Where am I? Geez, my head hurts. Why is it dark? Better go home. Mother will be worrying, and I'll have to—_

My thoughts broke off when I gained the sense to open my eyes. I was staring straight at a bed of crystal that emanated soft Luna moth colored light. It was beautiful, I had to admit, but it gave no clues about my location. The memory of the previous day (or what I assumed was the previous day) flooded into my mind much faster than I would have liked, leaving me slightly panicked. I turned my head and, realizing I was strewn across a cold black stone floor, pulled myself up. Clothing still on? Body completely intact? Five senses in working condition? Everything checked out right, but the fact remained that I was not where I had been.

A little wobbly, I allowed myself to drift through an arched doorway that led to a corridor. I followed the lifeless passage to yet another arch; this time, I was led into a gargantuan hall. To my right, a rather frightening suit of black armor stood fearlessly. I paused for a moment to soak it in, mesmerized. When I finally pried my eyes away, they fell instead on the taller-than-necessary ebony throne at the opposite end of the room. It was plain, to say the least, but hanging over it was a strange dome. There was something hypnotic about the dome that drew me closer to it. The dome was filled with moving things—dead things—and it whispered the same green hue into the air as the crystals overhead. In almost half of the time I had guessed it might take to cross the room, I found myself standing on the seat of the dark wooden chair. I lifted onto my tiptoes, one hand clinging to the edge of the throne. As my fingers spread over the membrane that kept the odd, skeletal figures closed off from the rest of the world, I realized where I was.

_Underworld_. The world echoed in my head. How I had failed to understand sooner, I wasn't sure. I nearly laughed at my incompetence; then I realized that I could not separate my hand from the dome. _No problem_, I attempted to soothe myself. I just had to breathe and shake off the sense that I was in a different world (even though I _was_ in a different world). The muscles of my arm pulled again with no avail. I yanked at my hand repeatedly, over and over, still unsuccessful. Something was emerging, shoving through the souls with black holes where eyes should have been, that caught my attention. I stopped attempting to pull away when a dead Spartan soldier made his way to the front, apparently unnoticed by other dead beings despite his fight for the limelight. Slowly, snakelike, he pushed his hands, visible to me as only bones, against the inside of the dome. I sucked in a breath—his fingers passed through the cold sheath of the dome, appearing black and rubbery on my side. My eyes widened in an adrenaline rush, and I pulled my arm with every available ounce of strength I could find.

"You'll have to get creative," I caught a distant, sinister male voice saying. "Just think up a few ideas and try them. I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually."

"I don't have time for eventually," another cool voice replied, irritated. The voices were getting closer, and my palm still refused to separate from the dome. Something wet was on my forearm; I discovered that the Spartan's shiny black hand had locked onto my skin and had to cover my mouth with my free hand to keep from screaming. I fought harder to free myself, but nothing was working.

My fingertips began to sink into the dome, and the voices continued to move closer. I tried to formulate a plan—there was a considerable space between the throne and the wall, perhaps enough for me to dangle in without being seen, but it was too high off of the ground for me to stay for very long. I could sink into the dome and remain entirely unnoticed, but that option would leave me with no more options. Ever. I was relentlessly pulling on my arm when footsteps clattered against the walls for a split second and stopped abruptly.

"Persephone." I cringed; It was more of a statement than a question. I turned edgily, desperation plain in my expression, hand entirely enveloped in the dome, to face Hades. I tried to breathe evenly in the sulfuric air while I took in the visage of the God of the Underworld. Black, black, and more black over white skin and piercing green eyes. I was now in up to my elbow, toes barely touching the seat of the ebony throne. When Hades's eyes doubled in size, I knew there was a problem.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a man with deep red eyes smirking.


End file.
